RE: The Statler Waldorf Balcony
October 18, 2010 at 3:04 pm
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2010 at 3:33 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
(October 15, 2010 at 5:41 pm)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: Where to begin...?
Assuming you believe in the Fall and Original Sin, let me pose a question: where did sin come from? Adam and Eve were supposedly created perfect. This means that, even with the free will to choose evil, they would have chosen good, as they would have had no inclination towards evil. So where did this evil come from? Did God create it? If so, then he punishes us for something he created. Did the Devil create it? If so, why did God create the Devil, knowing that he'd create evil and hence doom many of us to hell? Any way you look at it, it seems that God is directly responsible, either through commission or ommision, for the eternal torture of his creations.
I like the question :-) Well scripture does not give us a lot on the nature of Adam's will. We understand how man's will works today (not a free will), but Adam's will would have been different. Many Theologens believe that Adam had a true libertarian free will, so he was just as likely to choose right than wrong apart from God's common grace. Whereas people today will always choose evil without the grace of God. Did God ordain the fall to occur? Yes, however God does not stand symetricaly behind evil events as he does good events. He ordains both to happen but does so in a manner that does not negate the responsibility of man. I would encourage you to pick up Jonathan Edward's "The Freedom of the Will" (the Theologen not the fake psychic haha) if you would like to learn more, I think it is probably the single best work on the subject.
(October 15, 2010 at 8:27 pm)Zen Badger Wrote: I too wish to see more on anisotropic light as apart from this Robert Newton( who's creationist leanings automatically make him suspect) I can find nothing in mainstream literature.
BTW you also have yet to answer my question. "Where the bible and science disagree do you take the position that science will be wrong?"
I would not have thought that it was that hard to answer.
A simple "yes" or "no" will suffice.
Ok, all of the views on the isotropic propagation of light use the Calculated Definition of Time. This is a viewponit of time that did not come about until the early 20th century (maybe late 19th). So scripture does not use this definition of time, it uses the observational definition of time. Under this definition of time light does move an-isotropically. So we are not playing with the speed of light so much as we are just defining time differently. So if all the light beams for the stars reached Earth on the 4th day of creation, this would mean that God created these stars on the 4th day. Even though, by using the calculated definition of time He would have created those same stars a longer period of time ago depending on how many light years the object is away from Earth. Scientists today will still jump back and forth between the two defintions of time, when naming cosmic events they use observed time (supernova 1987a), when you ask them when they believe the event "really" took place they will use the calcuated definition of time. So to argue against the Biblical account of creation with the calculated definition of time is in error because the account is not written using that definition of time. Does that make more sense?
As to the question, "when science contradicts the Bible?"- I think I answered that in a different thread, but I can do it again if you'd like. Well I think most of us can agree that Science does not deal with absolutes, right? So I do not believe you can use something that is non-absolute to truly contradict something that makes absolute claims. It is very important to also read scripture while paying attention to when it is describing an event that is supposed to be natural, and when the event is supposed to be super-natural. If a virgin did give birth it would be a super-natural or miraculous event, I think we would all agree to this. The Bible describes this as a suepr-natural and miraculous event so I don't think it is appropriate to argue against this event as if it were completely natural. Now if you have a completley naturalistic worldview then I could see why you would not believe this story because it is impossible according to yoru worldview, but that is more just proof that people have different worldviews than it is proof the biblical account never happened. I do not believe science contradicts the Bible though because of the nature of evidence and how it is interpreted.
(October 15, 2010 at 6:22 pm)Ace Wrote:(October 15, 2010 at 5:26 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Yes I believe that creation happened in six 24 hour days on Earth.
Couldn't just sit by without replying to that.
God is all-powerful right? Well why would he take six fucking days to create everything if he could do it instantly?
Doesn't make any sense.
Well it is important to remember that not understanding "why" something is done, does not mean it was not done. I don't understand "why" a lot of you say the things you say, but that does not mean you did not say (type) them. That being said, we are given the reason for God's pattern of creation. God will use numbers symbolically, He always uses the number 7 to symbolize perfection. So a creation week of 7 days (the 7th being a day of rest) makes sense in that regard. He also created in this pattern to give His people a blue print to follow. The Jews works hard for 6 days and rested on the 7th, the reason they were given to do this was because God did it that way.
(October 15, 2010 at 6:44 pm)Rayaan Wrote:(October 15, 2010 at 5:26 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Heya,
Yes I believe that creation happened in six 24 hour days on Earth. As to whether this was just in observed time on Earth so that more time passed in the Universe or whether this was accomplished by gravitational wells or black holes I do not know. I tend to lean towards the whole idea of observational time vs. calculated time idea because it's simple and clean. Though I did see a video on the black hole thing last week that was pretty good. I stay away from ideas like "c-decay" and "gap theory" though. How about you?
Thanks for the reply, but I don't understand what you're saying about the idea of observational time vs. calculational time. It seems like you just dodged away from explaining your standpoint by simply putting some scientific terms in your post without explaining how they are related to each other. Everything you wrote sounds really vague to me. So, I think you should elaborate on your post when you have more time to do so. No offense to you, btw. It's just that you're post is not clear enough to understand what you're talking about.
I elaborated on this some more in this thread, give it a look and see if it makes more sense. If it does not, I can elaborate some more. Ok?
